Smokers cough

Smokers cough: Introduction

Coughing is a protective reaction of the body to the toxins in cigarette smoke, which irritate the respiratory tract and lungs. A dry, irritated cough can occur when inhaling smoke but it stops shortly after the smoke has been coughed out of the lungs.

In contrast, a smoker's cough is due to long-term smoking, which causes damage and destruction of the protective cilia of the respiratory tract. Cilia are hair-like structures that sweep harmful substances out of the lungs. Cilia that are damaged or destroyed can no longer sweep harmful substances, such as dust, bacteria, and viruses out of the lung. This leads to a build-up of mucus mixed with these substances in the respiratory tract, which the body tires to clear by coughing.

Despite the effort of the smoke's cough to clear the respiratory tract, long-term smoking leads to an increased risk of developing pneumonia and acute bronchitis, due to the build-up of viruses and bacteria in the respiratory tract. A smoker's cough is generally a wet cough that is productive of phlegm, which can be clear, white, yellow-green or blood tinged.

A smoker's cough can also develop due to chronic bronchitis. Chronic bronchitis is a progressive, recurring inflammation of the lungs, most often due to the damage that long-term smoking causes to the lungs. Chronic bronchitis causes the production of an abnormally large amount of mucus, which can block airways, resulting in a smoker's cough. For more information about symptoms and complications, refer to symptoms of smoker's cough.

Making a diagnosis of smoker's cough and/or acute bronchitis and/or chronic bronchitis begins with taking a thorough medical history, including symptoms and smoking history. A physical examination is also performed and includes listening with a stethoscope to the sounds that lungs make during respiration. Lung sounds that may point to an underlying diagnosis of bronchitis include wheezing and crackling sounds that can go away temporarily after coughing. There may also be decreased lung sounds.

In some cases, diagnostic testing can include lung function tests, such as a spirometry, which measures how much air is moved in and out of the lungs. A chest X-ray and CT scan of the chest can evaluate such factors as the presence of other conditions that may occur with long-term smoking and bronchitis, such as pneumonia and congestive heart failure. If there is severe shortness of breath, an arterial blood gas may be done. In this test a sample of blood is taken from an artery and tested for many parameters of effective respiration, including the oxygen level in the blood.

Smokers cough: A smoker's cough refers to coughing that normally occurs in people who have a history of chronic smoking. The coughing occurs mainly in the morning as the airways try and clear toxins and mucus that has built up during the night. Smoking affects the cilia that line the trachea and airways so that they can't effectively remove mucus and phlegm so coughing is an alternative way of removing the buildup.
More detailed information about the symptoms,
causes, and treatments of Smokers cough is available below.

Smokers cough: Symptoms

There are generally two types of cough that occur due to smoking. The first type occurs when the body coughs in reaction to inhaled toxins and lung irritants. This type of cough is generally dry and stops shortly after the smoke has been cleared out of the lungs.

Smokers cough: Treatments

A smoker's cough can be cured in many cases by quitting smoking or smoking cessation. The longer a person smokes, the harder it might be to quit and more likely that permanent damage may be done to the lungs resulting in such complications as lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, and other forms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, such as ...more treatments »

Smokers cough: Complications

Causes of Smokers cough

Cigarette smoking - In the trachea, the walls are lined with cilia, small hairs that protrude from the tracheal epithelium. They move in a synchronous wavelike motion, thereby moving foreign bodies trapped in phlegm upwards towards the oropharynx, so they may be swallowed. Cigarette smoke destroys or paralyzes these cilia, so the only way that phlegm can be removed is via coughing.

Misdiagnosis and Smokers cough

Sinusitis is overdiagnosed: There is a tendency to give a diagnosis of sinusitis,
when the condition is really a harmless complication of another infection,
such as a ...read more »

Whooping cough often undiagnosed: Although most children in the Western world have been
immunized against whooping cough (also called "pertussis"), this protection wears
off after about 15 years.
Thus, any teen or adult with...read more »

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